AAANNNDDD WERE BACK!!!

Hello everyone!! We were posted up in Ojai, CA and there was almost no internet signal, so no updates!  I left off when we were in Phoenix.  We spent some time with family, which was so nice!  It is always great meeting new people, but familiar faces are a nice touch of home =)  As we were leaving the flagstaff area we weren't really sure if there were going to be any glass blowers to visit in the area, since we hadn't really heard from anyone.  We got a message from an artist named Joey, who set up a place for us to park, and said we could come hang out for a few days.  We met up with Joey and Caleb at Caleb's shop. He has a new shop in his house where they both work. They are awesome guys and taught me a few things :) Joey hooked us up with Mike and Steve at Cloud Nine Smoke shop and they let us camp in front of their store for the weekend. I did a live glass blowing demo for them the next night, and was the first time I had ever done that. They picked up some glass for their store as well. Caleb then hooked us up with Tim @ Herb-N-Legend smoke shop . Who talked me into doing a live demo at his store as well :) He called up a local artist named Josh Hamra, who is really talented and super kind. We made a collab piece in the parking lot in our RV/ mobile studio. Herb-N-Legend also picked up some of our art so Kiley now has some work in a shop as well. We had a great pizza dinner with my grandma @ a crazy organ pizza place, and rolled out towards San Diego to meet my sister and for My birthday. We went to the dog beach at Ocean beach and Had a Delicious sushi dinner with my sister and her husband on my birthday. We spent the rest of the time working in the mobile studio at a friends house in Poway, CA. On the last day before we had to leave we went to Balboa Park which is a giant park with several museums, gardens, and art displays.  When we first arrived we walked up to a group of people standing out side the cultural arts building.  There were several people with large drums, as well as several girls dressed in work out type clothes.  As we walked up the drummers began playing a tribal sounding beat and all the girls started jumping around in a dance routine!  It was fun to watch for a few moments, and then we continued on past a huge playground and up the road past a rose garden as well as cactus garden.  My sister gave us free passes that got us into a bunch of the museums, that she and her husband had got for volunteering.  We would have LOVED to visit all the museums and gardens but we only had time for a few.  We first stopped at the San Diego Museum of Natural History.  Kileys camera unfortunately dies as soon as we got there, so no pictures =(  She was pretty bummed.  There was a gem and mineral exhibit going on so of course we spent quite a while in there =)  We moved on to the Museum of photography next, then walked around the Spanish village art center.  We went to the botanical building, but unfortunately they were closing and we only had about 5 minutes to walk through quickly.  We strolled through the park enjoying the free entertainment as well.  There was a magician, a "clown" dressed up doing balancing tricks and crowd jokes, some girls trying to raise money for a trip, singing songs, a group of kids having a dance off, a man playing the didjeridoo with beat keeper shaker things attached to his ankles (very cool) and much more!  We finished our trip at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, we had so much fun here!!  Definitely fun for kids AND adults who act like kids =)  We spent the most amount of time in this museum, and I would highly recommend it!  We ended the night with some fish tacos at a pizza place with my sister and her husband, came home, packed up the shop and left the next morning.  We stopped at camping world to get a oil change before we rolled out for Ojai. The first night in Ojai we met Ryan in town and he showed us a parking lot where we could park for the night. We had a welcome beer at a local bar and was it nice to see a familiar face.  Ojai is a tiny town just north of LA, but feel like another country! Its was hard to believe we were still in southern California!  It had a very "tight-knit"  small town feel, which I noticed immediately when we went to get some fresh air after our beer and came back in to full beers, on the house! We got up early at got to a quiet little camp ground called camp comfort. We were the only campers all week :) We camped next to the creek and the sounds of the frogs reminded me of home, there was an owl that we kept hearing and even got lucky enough to catch a couple glimpses of it in the trees and flying around. Ryan just opened a shop in Ojai in a Warehouse space. It has lots of room for growth. I helped him install his ventilation fan the first day I was there. Ojai is like no other town I have ever been to.  Its like a town from a movie!  It has a very vintage feel as you walk through, but when you go through the stores that cluster the downtown area, its easy to see it is a very modern, new-age type town.  There are no fast food places, or chains restaurants or stores, all local and lots of organic fresh everything.  The people were so welcoming! Everyone wanted to hear our story, and had so many questions.  They let us into their tribe and made us feel like family while we were there, and we are so thankful!   Ryan was super kind while we were there and We got a lot of work done and visited Georgios for scooners a lot as well. We also attended a champaign brunch next to a orange grove with some very kind cool people. We almost didn't want to leave Ojai, but there is so much to be explored still, so we moved onward =). Now we are in Atascadero California at Jason Sparks Studio. He hooked us up with a spot to camp right next to his studio.  And has been very gracious so far!  We have been here a few day, got the shop set up, camper unpack, mailed some stuff (etsy sales YAY!!!) and starting to get some work done.  Hopefully since we are in a spot with internet I will be able to keep the blog updated more often!  So now, BACK TO WORK!

JR and KILEY